Super Sunkissed Sunday

Another gorgeous, sunny morning in Whitley Bay. I take a look in the garden with a view to revving up the laptop and working al fresco.



I'm joined by some of our feline residents...


Deciding it was too bright and too hot to be working under the glare of the sun, I opt for the shade of an orange parasol in the back yard.

Flat Earth Society Cheer Me, Perverts

Making a jazz noise here!
Cheer Me, Perverts
Flat Earth Society
Crammed Discs

You get a lot of bang for you buck with the sixth album released by Belgium's Flat Earth Society. A cavalcade of extrovert performances erupt from this 14-piece group boasting tuba, trombone, trumpet, clarinet, euphonium, various saxes, keyboards, accordion, electric guitar and a riotous rhythm section in its line-up.

The intriguing album title comes from an anagram of the name of group leader Peter Vermeersch and he guides his top-notch players through the same anarchic territory as their last release, Psychoscout (2006), like some wild-eyed pied piper.

Recalling the madcap ensemble tendencies of Loose Tubes or the wry flourishes of Kurt Weill arranged for a Burlesque house band, every piece shines with exuberant, provocative charts.

Themes and variations jump out on top of each in a series of frenetic cat and mouse ambushes with the intricately scripted cartoonish violence of one of Scott Bradley's more fantastical Tom & Jerry scores.

Occasionally Vermeersch dials down the mayhem long enough to allow moments of exquisite sensitivity to be revealed, allowing the listener to pause for breath. Yet too often these are swamped in an avalanche of blaring horns and instrumental comedy routines.

This is a pity because whilst you can't fault the overall playing and inventive air, the hyperactive mania of the arrangements provokes a certain fatigue after a while.

Nevertheless big, bold and frequently not so much zany as just plain daft, full marks for the full-on gusto with which these Flat Earthers hurl themselves over the edge.

This review originally appeared here.

Nominations For God LXXXIV

William Burroughs

Demos Crosby, Stills and Nash

Hair-raising Hippies
Demos
Crosby, Still, & Nash
Rhino

It is part of the enduring myth surrounding the making the first Crosby, Stills and Nash album that our three heroes more or less bumped into each other, accidentally burst into song and Bob’s your uncle – a ground-breaking supergroup was born.

Such mythologizing appeals directly into the public’s love and desire to maintain the plucky, spontaneous “let’s do the show right here” showbiz cliché. But such an account actually undersells the amount of work these three musicians put into honing their god-given talent.

These recordings show how the trio worked on crafting their songs and sometimes, it’s the contrast between its native state and its final shape that piques one’s interest.

In its demo form, Graham Nash’s "Marrakesh Express" is agreeable enough lightweight ditty. However, it’s only when Stephen Stills, in his ‘Captain Manyhands’ role, adds the sun-kissed guitars and evocative chugging Hammond organ that its bug-to-butterfly transition is completed.

That evolutionary process is particularly evident on two cuts from David Crosby. The belligerent, freak-flag flying protest of "Almost Cut My Hair" begins life introspectively musing upon an ideologically embattled America at war with itself. This version is the calm before the storm but no less powerful.

With "Carry On", Crosby has the song mapped out but spends several minutes scat singing, chasing down both feel and mood, sensing the stress points and the potential paths to glory. Listening to it is eavesdropping on an artist caught in the creative act.

With the blueprints of the CSN masterplan laid out before us, we can clearly see that songs from both the first and second albums burst forth between 1968 and 1970. Though they would record many fine songs after this period, they would never quite equal the achievements of this time.

When you add to this their respective solo records were all written and released in the same period, you begin to grasp just how brief but utterly magnificent their reign was.


This review first appeared here.

Carry On Laughing

One of the really great things about spending time with Alo and Gordon mainly because Alo and Debbie spend so much time laughing.

At lunch time we took a walk out to Croxley Green itself...





Tragically for me my right ankle is badly swollen and walking is even more painful than it usually is. As we prepare to leave I abandon my rickety old shoes and opt instead for Croc comfort.

A Capital Day

This morning we left Croxley Green go into London. Our ultimate destination was Tate Britain but we called into a neat little jewellery shop just around the corner...


We headed off to see the Tate's re-staging of the only exhibition that William Blake had in his life time. Other highlights for me included a John Martin painting that I hadn't seen before. Another bonus included the Rothko and Turner rooms.

After Tate Britain we took a walk along the embankment toward the seat of British democracy, the place where some MP's think tax payers should stump up for their gardening, bath plugs, mortgage payments and capital gains tax.

Oliver Cromwell is saying nothing...

Over the road where there's a demonstration, Winston Churchill is keeping schtum as well...

I asked one of the policemen at Downing Street if Gordon Brown is at home as my pals and I want to have a few words with him. "He's up your neck of the woods" replies the officer with the rifle in his hands.
We find a nearby pub...


Then a nearby Chinese restaurant....

Then the crowds in Leicester Square...

Lowe & High

Debra and I saw Nick Lowe in concert last night. A marvellous gig during which the smile never left my face.

photo from efsb's Flickr photostream

This morning however, the smile was far from my face as we headed off to Newcastle airport and an early morning flight down to Stansted.

From Lowe to high, ho-ho.

We're going to spend a couple of days with Alo and Gordon. Alo and Debra used to go to school together. Alo's husband, Gordon, (aka Gordallmighty), also happens to be Debra's cousin.

I had some unfinished work to file and so before heading off into London itself, Deb and I grabbed a cup of tea whilst I bashed out some words.

Thea Gilmore Recorded Delivery

Calm & Collected...
Recorded Delivery
Thea Gilmore
Fruitgum Music

The near-universal acclamation of last year's Liejacker ensures that there’ll be an intense spotlight on Thea Gilmore’s follow-up whenever that may come. Perhaps a glimpse of what's to come can in the found in the plaintive loneliness of new track "You And Frank Sinatra" - one of two new pieces included on this set.

In the meantime, the first live album of her career necessarily represents something of a holding pattern, touching upon most aspects of her back catalogue, providing a point at which to summarise and take stock.

In one or two instances renditions of tracks such as "Old Soul" and "The Lower Road" are improvements upon their studio counterparts despite, or more likely, because of the absence of guest vocalists Zuton's Dave McCabe and folk legend Joan Baez respectively.

Have You Heard from 2003's Avalanche, whilst clearly owing a structural debt to Leonard Cohen's "Everybody Knows" is an undoubted highpoint, as is "My Own Private Riot", containing Jim Kirkpatrick's wonderfully contrarian guitar breaks.

It's evident that Gilmore enjoys a good rapport with an appreciative audience. Yet, whilst the backing on the rockabilly roustabout of the vintage "This Girl Is Taking Bets" pushes and strains at the bit, Gilmore seems as glacially calm as she does on the stately ballad, "Icarus Wind."

It's a method of delivery that suggests either a curious detachment or a vice-like grip that could do with loosening up a touch.

This review first appeared here.

A Beautiful Morning In Brum...

Goodbye to the Strathallan and the Hagley Road...

Before heading back to Whitley Bay we called back to N&H's for a lovely breakfast and an even lovelier sojourn in their garden...

Travis & Fripp: Coventry Cathedral

Departing from Chez Lever at around 9.00ish and arriving at Bristol Temple Meads at around 10.15.

Arriving in Coventry via Birmingham some time after 1.00 p.m.



Prior to the performance at 4.00 pm, the afternoon light begins to play upon the stained glass,bringing the space to life.




This intensely colourful display presages the music produced by Theo and Robert.

Around 300 or so people gathered in this impressive space. The format was different to the previous shows with two sets each lasting around 40 minutes, joining the angels high up in the rafters of the cathedral.

The last piece of the tour was also the longest. Similar to the Threnody 'scapes of a few years ago, it grew from shrill, single notes into an enormous, complex cloud of shifting density and mood. Theo's looped flute created slowly undulating eddies of notes whilst the soprano added piercing shafts of light. This was new territory for the duo and the weight of it in this venue was profound and moving.

When it came a dead stop - ushered in by a three or four note guitar motif - the silence which followed its conclusion provided an uplifting, cathartic release. Then came the thunderous applause.

As that echoed around the place, Robert came off and we exchanged looks and comments along the lines of "Where did that come from?" Where indeed.

After saying goodbye to Theo and Trev, I met up with Bernard, Lesley and Debbie who'd driven down from Newcastle.


We left Coventry and drove over to Birmingham to swap one piece of post-war architecture for another...The Strathallan Hotel on the Hagley Road.

There was only enough time to book in, drop our bags and head out again...

...to our evening engagement with old chums Neil and Halina who had a glass of bubbly waiting for the very moment of our arrival.


Neil's claim to fame (at least as far as I'm concerned) is the a) having seen The Soft Machine circa 1968 and b) having once shared a hospital ward with the singer, Leapy Lee, who was wagging it there during a period of detention at Her Majesty's Pleasure.

A lovely evening to a remarkable day's music.

Nominations For God LXXXIII

Gloria Coates

Travis & Fripp: Bishop's Cleeve

The drive to Bishop's Cleeve near Cheltenham was wonderfully smooth, with Trevor's sat nav device cleverly managing to avoid delays and traffic jams reported on our route. Whilst Trevor went off to grab a coffee, I wandered to venue where I bumped into Adrian and Andrea from last year's King Crimson tour. It was good having a natter and catching up.


Inside the boys were soundchecking...

The concert was introduced by PJ Crook to a crowd of regular church goers, the curious and T&F fans. Though some territories were familiar, the tone and feel was different tonight.

There was a beautiful moment when one piece finished: complete silence from the audience - only the background whirring of the heating system thrummed against the old stones of the place.

At another point in the performance, Robert asked us to celebrate the impending marriage of Adrian and Andrea, something everyone in the building did with great gusto! How special for them I thought. And it couldn't have happened to a nicer couple.

My impression was that tonight's performance was a touch longer than last night in Broad Chalke but I could be wrong - my sense of time gets sliced and diced with this music.

Afterwards, Trevor and I helped Trev strip the equipment down and help load the van. Having chronic back trouble got me out of the heavy lifting but I was able to roll up a few leads and wheel the odd box of tricks to the van outside.

We made it back to Chez Lever (taking an hour and half), reflecting on our three days together and acknowledging our luck at being in the right place and the right time in order to be able to hear this music.

The Trevor Lever Interlude

Before we head off to Bishop's Cleeve we take a peek at some tangential tributaries in the KC story that Trevor has collected over the years.

Travis & Fripp: Broad Chalke

Leaving Chez Lever, we stopped briefly to pick up Den and Stuart who were lovely company for a journey across countryside that would've made Vaughan Williams himself burst into tears. If it get's any better than this then I'd like to know.

Arrival in Broad Chalke achieved, we took a walk along to the local shop to get a bottle of water.

The heat was astonishing. Happily we were able to take refuge in the coolness of today's venue...

The earlier showtime (5.00 p.m.) meant a different kind of music to last night's more sombre affair in Wimborne. Brilliant sunshine provided a diaphanous glow in the old building which the flute and soundscapes emphasised and added to. The surprise of the afternoon was a slowly undulating variation on "Moonchild".

Amongst the small but appreciative gathering in the church was...

Mister Stormy himself, Alex Mundy...

Hugh the Fierce...

and Michael Giles

After the show, Michael chatted with me about his forthcoming MAD band album, as well as catching up with Theo.

Outside, it's a photocall for Trevor, Stuart and Den...

and a spectacular tree in the church grounds...

Then a hour's drive back to Wells to digest the day's events and a rather good Indian meal.

Travis & Fripp: Wimborne

There’s the beginnings of a beautiful morning in Whitley Bay as the taxi arrives to take me to the airport at around 5.45 a.m.


Because of our screwed up transport system, getting down to Bristol via the train would cost me a small fortune. It might be more environmentally friendly to let the train take the strain but when the price of a ticket would set me nearly two hundred notes (whilst taking about six hours to get from A to B), it seems flying for about £30 for a flight lasting no more than 45 minutes, is really rather a no-brainer.

In Bristol I am met by Trevor Lever. Trevor’s history with Crimso goes all the way back to the start of the story when he turned up to see the Stones play in Hyde Park in 1969 but had his head turned by one of the support groups on the day.

Once Trevor has finished his work, we pick up Kathryn (Trevor's pal and excellent garden designer to boot), then hit the road for Wimborne.


The mirth muscles are tickled en route by the sat nav, voiced on this occasion by a crusty sounding John Cleese. "Bear right, beever left" becomes something of a soundtrack for the day.

Wimborne Minster is rather more imposing than I imagined.


Inside there are another couple of faces adorning the stone work (though you need to look carefully)...
It's Mister Stormy and sound man (in all senses of the word), Trev...

Robert and Theo are just packing up and heading out for refreshments. As I'm wandering around the vacinity of the King's Head, Robert walks up and for a few minutes he points out various shops, offices and watering holes of his youth.

Joining Theo and the boys inside the King's Head, I play catch up with Trev (recently back from Estonia with The Humans) and hear from Theo that yesterday's rehearsals with Robert went well.

Inside, the Minster was almost full. The occasion was a memorial concert of sorts to Tony Jones, a supporter of Wimborne Minster Preservation Trust and someone who used to work with Robert's father. Beginning with low, slow-moving loops from the flute the music tentatively evolved, taking several moments to gradually unfurl and fill the building.

I was expecting fairly long, exploratory numbers but in fact the duo played a series of short pieces. Third number in (or what I counted as third number) Fripp played a solo of haunting high notes that swayed and bent as though moved by the gentlest of winds. It was incredibly moving.

In an interval, Robert, looking and sounding like a member of the clergy, talked about his memories of Tony Jones. "There is no loss in a life well lived" he said, his own voice seemingly choked with emotion, "But there is loss."

The second half of the music maintained the somewhat solemn atmosphere. Travis' soprano sax and alto flute weaving between the rich layers emanating from Fripp's guitar. It's hard to know what the audience would've made of this. Whilst one or two clearly knew what to expect, the vast majority didn't. Trevor told me afterwards that one disgruntled retired Major type harrumphed sotto voce "These chaps only seem to know one number!"

After the concert I was able to chat with Ian who I'd last seen in New York. Talking to others, I wasn't alone in being close to tears as a result of Travis and Fripp's music. Their album, Thread though very good, barely touches upon what these two musicians are capable of producing.

Orwell's Children I

1969 & All That I: Snoopy & Charlie Brown

Apollo 10 lifts off 40 years ago today

Joker's Daughter The Last Laugh

Dream Logic
The Last Laugh Joker's Daughter
Double Six

Given the preeminence of Danger Mouse's position as the producer with the Midas touch and one half of Gnarls Barkley, it would be entirely understandable if singer and multi-instrumentalist, Helena Costas were to be somewhat overawed or perhaps, overshadowed by his considerable presence.

Yet far from being an uneven contest this is in fact a partnership of equals delivering an engagingly lavish set replete with quirky, off-centre atmospheres.

Whilst her lyrics frequently invoke a kooky magical realist vibe involving fairies, goblins, hooded men and walking trees, songs of real substance loom out of this fantastical ephemera.

"Go Walking" (arguably the best song ever written about Hadrian's Wall) and the poignant "Nothing Is Ever What It Seems" enthrall and inspire goosebumps. Like many of the current crop of breathy singer-songwriters, her voice wavers and swoons alarmingly, like a canary in a coal mine at times.

This quietly intense singing is often wreathed in exquisite string arrangements by Danger Mouse regular, Daniele Luppi, reminiscent in places of the way Robert Kirby's scores framed Nick Drake's introspective tones.

The album is dripping with the subdued, trippy pastoralism you find on albums by The Incredible String Band, Amazing Blondel or Trees. However, this rests comfortably alongside the squalls of day-glo 21st Century electronica that leech into The Last Laugh's sonic landscape.

However, the real star is not the production values but Costas herself, leaping from one improbable song to another, emanating a strange, alien grace and a beguiling dream-logic all its own.

This review first appeared here.

Lock Up Your Tearooms! Travis & Fripp Hit The Road

In the post recently there arrived this handsome-looking package.


It comes highly recommended...


It's been an age since I felt the weight of an album in my hand.
And lo, it was good.
This format has such resonance and presence for me. I mean I realise that compared to an MP3 this stuff is so 20th Century but there's such an appealing gravitas to it.

The CD release of the Thread album (reviewed here) has done well. Let's hope the vinyl version (bright orange by the way) continues the trend. This release comes with extra tracks to its regular CD counterpart but these are also utilised (in part at least) on Theo's equally beguiling Double Talk album.

The Travis & Fripp World Tour will be calling in at Wimborne Minster, Broad Chalke Church, Bishop's Cleeve Church and Coventry Cathedral toward the end of next week.

I'm going to be doing a bit of a road trip to these dates with old Crimso pal, Trevor Lever.

Nominations For God LXXXII

Henry Purcell

Street Life CLXX

Lunch With Tim II

Black Dog Departing

I notice that the black dog that has been scratching at the door of late has left the house today. In fact it probably left yesterday but I was too preoccupied to properly appreciate it.

Emerging from the yellow room and into the yellow hallway, I see that Min has found a 12 inch patch of intense sunlight and is doing her best to soak it up...

closer inspection by the book case...

Gilgamesh Another Fine Tune You've Got Me Into

What they did on their Summer holiday...
Another Fine Tune You've Got Me Into
Gilgamesh
Esoteric Records

The death from leukemia in 1981 of keyboard player Alan Gowen at the tragically early age of 33, robbed the Canterbury Scene of one of its more enigmatic figures.

Best known for his work in National Health, his own band, Gilgamesh, are sometimes overlooked but produced two albums of elegant, erudite music with a refined, distinctively jazzy feel.

Their second and final record released in 1978, showcases Gowen’s method of blurring boundaries between what was composed and what was left to the players to improvise.

Joined by long-term collaborator, guitarist Phil Lee, together with ex-Nucleus drummer, Trevor Tompkins and ex-Soft Machine bassist and all-round Canterbury legend, Hugh Hopper, the results are supple and strong without ever descending into vulgar displays of muscle-bound jazz-rock excess.

Yet these boys aren’t afraid to work out with a riff or two as the knotty, gravity-defying intricacies of "Darker Brighter" clearly demonstrate.

Lacking Hatfield and the North’s self-deprecating humour, things can get a little too earnest. Nevertheless, "Play Time" and the spellbinding "Underwater Song", held together by the shimmering threads of Tomkins’ ultra-light cymbal work, are classics of the genre and fully deserve to be cherished.

Clive Gregson The Best of Clive Gregson

Pure class
The Best of Clive Gregson
Gregsongs

It's been a few years since Clive Gregson swapped the streets of Manchester for the sun-drenched boulevards of Nashville but it's a move that clearly agrees with him.

From his days with the Stiff label's 80s popsters, Any Trouble, Gregson has grown in stature as a classy songwriter, swapping the Elvis Costello-centric sounds of his youth for something akin to a smooth Ry Cooder.

Not your straightforward greatest hits package, Gregson often inserts a demo of a song rather than the original version and in doing so, illustrates how he hones his material.

There's a smile-inducing nerdiness to Gregson's annotations for each song. He's likely to tell you more about the tape recorder he used to demo "I Love This Town" - a Tascam 488 multi-track cassette machine since you ask - as he does about the fact that Nanci Griffith covered it to great acclaim.

The exquisite "Cornerstone" may be built around an uncomplicated arpeggiated figure yet its impact is complex and nuanced thanks to Gregson's sure-handed grasp.

Perhaps this is why singers from the great and good - Norma Waterson, Kim Carnes and venerable UK folk institution, Fairport Convention to name but a few - to even the lowliest of street buskers and folk club hopefuls are able to inhabit his songs and call them their own.

Long-term fans will enjoy the alternate takes whilst newcomers will find this a fine starting point to explore a songbook brimming with warmth.

This review first appeared here

Fender Rhodes

I was at Tim's house the other day. We went up into his attic and took a look at his old Fender Rhodes.

Lifting the lid off it we discovered (in no particular order)

sponge
funk
springs
reverie
jabs
rock
bliss
melancholy
sparkle
startle
starlight
shivers
shimmering
sweetness
quicksilver
pools
sunshine
rapture
love
gloom
phase
fiesta
stereo
tinkles
growl
rumble
flashes
haze
light
shade
limpid
groove
languid
jazz
softness
black
glow
cascade
clouds
winter
breath
autumn
skipping
chimes
swing
singing
deep
resonance
poetry
pure
space
pleasure
dazzle
cool
innocence
coy
experience
smears
sound
jolts
soul
impressions
changeling
ring modulation
machine
modified
metallic
mercurial
hopeful
bright
echo
gone
alone
now
then
happening
happy
moonlight

Nominations For God LXXXI

Diane Arbus

Trying To Break Out

I'm trapped by a job I'm doing at the moment.

Tapping at the keyboard only mediocre gobbledygook on the screen fixes me with its baleful, depressing glare.

I'm like a rabbit transfixed in its remorseless headlights.

With a monumental effort of will, I unglued myself from the desk, decamping from the yellow room, deliberately leaving all the previous drafts flapping uselessly behind me.

My thinking was that the change of scene might break my current run of bad luck with words.

It didn't.

Lunch With Tim I

Street Life CLXIX (including Yellow Room Prelude VII)

Happy Birthday Lesley

Today is my sister's birthday. I'm still awaiting the results of the carbon dating to determine her precise age but let's just agree on this one fact.


She's old.

Very old.


I had a recent exchange with an e-pal about Crosby, Stills & Nash's debut album. They asked me how come I was into them at such a young age?

The answer was simple -my sister.

Aside from CSN's debut album 40 years ago, Lesley's record collection was responsible for opening so many doors in my life and determining a significant direction in my tastes.

It was through her that I first encountered The Beatles (she saw them in 1963), then later, Mountain, Free, Beach Boys, Tamla, Fleetwood Mac (Peter Green era of course), Otis Redding, Led Zeppelin, Bessie Smith, Cream, Jack Bruce, Terry Reid, Jimi Hendrix (who she also saw live in Newcastle in 1968) Memphis Slim, Deep Purple, Captain Beefheart, Jethro Tull, McDonald & Giles, Keith Tippett, and of course, King Crimson.

When she went off hitching around Europe I used to pretend her record collection was mine and thus rack up huge amounts of street-cred from envious school chums, aghast that "my" collection was so authoritative and exhaustive.

Without her influence I might not be doing what I do today and for that - amongst many other things - I thank her and wish her happy birthday.

Orange Room And Blues

I've really been struggling these last couple of days. Not only have I been busy with various deadlines, pitches and domestic considerations, but I've been weighed down by a non-specific unwellness that has made clocking the hours more akin to wading through treacle.

Last night's news from Chicago of the death of an old acquaintance (a mere 45 years old no less) inevitably provokes a sense of one's own mortality, reinforcing the feeling that we only come this way once.

Elsewhere though the house is buzzing with activity.


After what can only be described as a sumptuous feast (coming hot on the heels of yesterday's equally plush nosh), I retired back upstairs and caught up with BBC's Blues Britannia documentary.

An enjoyable trawl through the UK's blues boom. It will draw some fire for its rather cursory treatment of John Mayall's Bluesbreakers but perhaps the programme makers took the view that his particular story is so well known that it need not be told again. Certainly there were a few things in there that I was previously unaware of. Champion Jack Dupree settled down in Halifax? Blimey.

An interesting side-bar within the documentary was the role of class. Once again, it's a bunch of middle class kids (mostly) vicariously seeking "authenticity" which establishes a critical orthodoxy. This agenda that has pretty much determined what is "real" music with anything deviating from this norm rounded upon as suspect and "pretentious" i.e. the crime of music having ideas above its supposed station.

Isn't it funny how progressive rock was regularly pilloried by many of the (largely) middle class critics for being too high-brow and thus somehow not as authentic or real or as meaningful as the blues and blues-based rock?

William R Strickland Is Only The Name

Wowie Zowie - Weirdy Beardy
William R Strickland Is Only The Name
Esoteric Recordings

When Decca’s sampler album, Wowie Zowie - The World of Progressive Music was released in 1969 it attempted to summarise a contemporary music scene undergoing huge changes.

Yet, a solitary spot of Genesis juvenilia aside, it’s a bunch of not terribly visionary (or even progressive) UK blues and jazz groups doing their thing.

However, two names - both American, incidentally - Touch (whose self-titled album spookily anticipated what would later become prog rock with a capital P) and William R Strickland stood out from the crowd of usual suspects therein.

Though Strickland’s declamatory vocals and earnest strumming on Computer Lovers from the Decca sampler, gave the impression of him being your average singer-songwriter, the atonal morse-code moog that had been randomly spattered across the track, confirmed he was anything but straight forward.

Released on CD for the first time since its original Deram label outing in 1969, only now can we see the full extent of Strickland’s skewed view as to how things should be.

Even today, 40 years later, his whacky, way-out world remains challenging music. Had James Joyce ever recorded an album there’s a pretty good chance it might’ve sounded like this stream-of-consciousness deluge of voice, guitars and unsettling orchestral backings.

The songs appear to be improvised on the spot with backing tracks added at a later stage. Timings are erratic as Strickland wanders off the beaten track of verses and choruses, and his theatrical sprechgesang easily outdoes Tim Buckley at his most flamboyant.

The horror movie strings on the unremittingly bleak If I Stand Here Much Longer heighten an already tense situation. As Strickland veers between argumentative recriminations, snatches of The Tennessee Waltz, deranged chordal attacks on his guitar, the schizophrenic, in-your-face impact is genuinely unsettling.

The alienated musing of Scott Walker come to mind but it would be another twenty years or so before Walker would enter territory as estranged and oblique as the world of Robert S Strickland.

Probably the most striking reissue of the year.

Nominations For God LXXX

Sammy Cahn